Bannerman, Colin: Australian food history

The importance that food and eating have assumed as components of popular culture in Australia has not yet been matched by thorough historical analysis. This essay briefly surveys existing histories of non-indigenous eating in Australia and outlines a theoretical framework within which an explanatory history of Australian food culture could be constructed. It suggests that, for reasons of relative newness and isolation, the Australian setting is ideal for testing such a framework. Finally, it notes that the processes of communication through which an Australian culture of food and eating developed—whether or not that culture amounts to a distinctive cuisine—largely documented its progress, thus simplifying the task for historians.